A very impressive thing, the Cy Young Award, unless you happen to hit for the Cleveland Indians.

With a loss to Detroit Tigers ace Justin Verlander in their last meeting, the Tribe had gone 7-2 in nine games this season against pitchers with Cy Youngs on their resume, that win total an unprecedented feat by any team before a season had moved into June.

In those seven wins against R.A. Dickey, David Price, Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Bartolo Colon, Felix Hernandez and Verlander in the first of their two meetings -- and a loss to Jake Peavy and the Chicago White Sox -- the Indians had outscored the opposition 60-14. Even when you throw in Verlander’s win, the eight Cy Youngs had a collective ERA of 8.21 versus Cleveland.

"We talk about it every day," said left fielder Michael Brantley. "I think we’ve been able to do that because we all have a good approach. We make those guys work hard and throw a lot of pitches.”

Especially Brantley, a .304 hitter this season. His career batting average against Verlander is a preposterous .464 and versus Hernandez is .400, part of Brantley's overall average of .413 (43-for-104) against those two, Hernandez, Dickey, Lee, Matt Cain, Zack Greinke, James Shields, Josh Beckett and Josh Johnson.

Tommytown

Tommy John, the surgery, has hit the Padres hard. They're awaiting the return of three of their best young arms -- Cory Luebke, Joe Wieland and Casey Kelly -- who've all had ligament-replacement over the past two years.

But the Atlanta Braves have had seven major league pitchers -- all but one in their 20's -- who've undergone the Tommy John procedure by Dr. James Andrews in the last five years. In order, they are Tim Hudson (2008), Peter Moylan (May '08), Kris Medlen (August '10), Arodys Vizcaino (March '12), Brandon Beachy (June '12) and both Johnny Venters and Eric O'Flaherty over the past couple weeks.

And while the aforementioned have carried large workloads in terms of innings and appearances, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez maintains the same outlook as his predecessor and mentor, the estimable Bobby Cox.

“I am a believer, the more I’m in this, you’ve got a certain amount of bullets, and when it’s time to blow, it blows,” Gonzalez told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "You can coddle or mother-hen them, but it’s going to blow anyway."

Besides, it's hard on the elbow, carrying around all those W's.

“You look at every bullpen of winning teams, there’s heavy workloads,” said GM Frank Wren. “That goes with the territory. When you have a team that’s winning a lot of games, pitchers pitch a lot.”

Cubsticks

Sometimes – and that’s a lot of times with the Cubs – a pitcher has to take things into his own hands when taking a bat in his hand. The Cubs’ rotation actually has been pitching fairly well well this season, though you wouldn't know it from Chicago's sub-.400 record.

The same starting pitchers, too, have driven in 14 runs, a month unlike any the Cubs have experienced since September of 1971. Indeed, the No. 9 hitter in the Chicago lineup has produced the same number of home runs (five) as the Cubs cleanup, and 21 RBI to the No. 4 hitters' 17.